It has become a popular pasttime to produce various objects d'art by means of hobby craft kits, such as paint-by-number kits, jewelry-making kits, and the like. Such kits generally provide for a series of basic steps, each step being performable by a person of average ability, the successful execution thereof resulting in the production of an object purportedly having artistic merit. Kits for the production of sculpture arts have been available but have generally suffered from one or more drawbacks such as high cost, poor quality results, limited nature of figures producable by the method, difficulty in execution, high incidence of breakage, lack of capability to permit individual artistic expression and lack of artistic and decorative value of the product.
The present invention provides an inexpensive implement for enabling a person of ordinary skill to readily produce sculpture art of a virtually unlimited variety and of high artistic and decorative value. The implement enables the user to be guided throughout all steps, yet he or she retains a feeling of accomplishment and can express a high degree of individuality, if desired. The foregoing is accomplished by providing as the aforementioned implement a uniquely constructed mold for cast-reproduction of a decorative structure. The mold comprises a pair of mold halves, each formed of rigid polyvinyl chloride film having a thickness of 0.010 .+-. 0.003 inch and which is deformed to conform to opposite surface contours of a structure to be produced. The mold halves mate along a parting line to define a mold chamber, an access opening to the chamber and marginal regions coextensive about the chamber from the parting line. The marginal regions are formed with conjugate protuberances which coact to align the mold halves and which can be secured by cross-wise insertion of pins therethrough. Accordingly, a mold is provided which can be securely closed without the need for expensive and bulky framing structures.
While different materials and different thicknesses may be usable to form molds for some types of figures, I have discovered that properties needed to facilitate securement of the aforenoted conjugal marginal protuberances, and for foolproof use by amateurs for the widest figure shapes, are uniquely provided by rigid polyvinyl chloride (as will be described in the details hereinafter provided) of the aforenoted thickness. Such properties are sufficient thinness for ease of penetration of pins therethrough, the ability to be vacuum formed, sufficient thinness and pliability for close conformation to the surface contours of the figures to be reproduced so as to retain fine details thereof, sufficient thickness and rigidity to support casting material and sufficient flexibility to be peelable from a partially set product.